The Western Growers Center for Innovation and Technology was created to link Western Growers members with innovators in the agtech space.

Agrology

Agtech startup Agrology participated in the International Fresh Produce Association’s Fresh Field Catalyst Accelerator Immersion Program, a week-long deep dive into California growers. Agrology was one of 12 climate solution companies to join the immersion week, where they visited more than a dozen growers to learn first-hand where technology is needed to address major industry challenges including labor shortages, the climate crisis, and water and resource scarcity. Agrology also launched a new Fire Map App to enable growers to monitor active wildfires within a 20-mile radius anywhere in the world. The Agrology app is now available for free in the iOS App Store and can be downloaded here.

AgTools

Agtools was featured by the University of Florida during the AI/ML in Agriculture Conference in Orlando. Of interest, Southeastern U.S. farms growing perishable and seasonal food continue to achieve gains due to economies of scale and scope. These gains are largely dependent on management decisions made based on market information. In addition, Agtools’ founder was featured by The Packer’s 14th annual Women in Produce awards honoring eight industry leaders who play pivotal roles in the success of their own organizations, as well as the produce industry as a whole. Another win: Agtools, representing the United States, won the IICA—Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture—Agtech award among 70 companies from the Northern Hemisphere. Finally, Agtools was able to use their technology to alert customers in February of the potential shortage of grapes in May.

Carbon Robotics

Carbon Robotics’ revolutionary, high-precision laserweeding technology uses sophisticated AI deep-learning technology, computer vision, robotics and lasers to reduce weed control costs by 80 percent and improve crop yield and quality. Carbon Robotics’ LaserWeeder utilizes 30 high-powered CO2 lasers and thermal energy to identify, target and eliminate weeds at the meristem with millimeter accuracy, without disturbing the soil or damaging nearby crops. The implement can kill up to 99 percent of weeds, weed up to two acres per hour and eliminate up to 5,000 weeds per minute, equivalent to a hand-weeding crew of 75 people. In February 2023, Carbon Robotics introduced the industry’s first LaserThinning capability for its LaserWeeder, targeting areas where vegetable crops are purposefully overseeded and then thinned for optimal crop spacing, growth and yield. To date, Carbon Robotics’ LaserWeeders have successfully eliminated over 1 billion weeds across more than 40 different crops. 2023 deliveries will bring the LaserWeeder to farms in 17 U.S. states and three provinces in Canada, with 2023 pre-orders nearly sold out and pre-orders for 2024 deliveries well underway. This year, Carbon Robotics was named to Fast Company’s annual list of Most Innovative Companies and raised $35 million in Series C funding to expand sales regions in North America, optimize and scale manufacturing, develop new software and hardware products, and launch into international markets.

En Solución

En Solución continues to expand its reach by bringing its fully automated ozone nanobubble system to new Ag sectors to help lower the cost of food safety while increasing quality control. We are partnering with Riveridge Produce in Michigan to conduct pilot testing of our technology in their cider processing facility. Our technology has already helped Riveridge reduce water usage while maintaining their high sanitization and product quality standards. En Solución will also continue our work with the Sunterra Meats facility in Trochu, Alberta, Canada, where we are testing the use of ozone nanobubble solution to maintain product shelf life and reduce SunTerra’s need for chemical sanitizers in their pork processing facility. We continue to work with them to find new application points for extending shelf life through environmentally sustainable and safe sanitizing solutions. En Solución continues to seek additional installation locations with industry-leading partners across North America—let us know if you are interested in receiving more information on success stories by sending a note to [email protected]!

Ganaz

The GeekWire Awards recognize the top innovators and companies in Pacific Northwest technology, and Ganaz was honored to be one of the recipients. Launched six years ago, workforce software platform Ganaz has grown to serve more than 250,000 agricultural workers in the U.S. and Mexico and 100 employers in the sector. “We founded Ganaz to make life better for farm workers, and we do that by building technology that agricultural employers love and can’t live without,” said co-founder and CEO Hannah Freeman. “We build our tools to help both workers and employers prosper, and that kicks off a virtuous cycle that helps agricultural communities prosper as well.” The Seattle company’s software offers employee on-boarding, training, communication and analytics tools. The business is targeting farm workers, growers and food processors. One of its newer offerings is a Mastercard Payroll Card that allows un-banked workers to access digital banking. Employers save time and money by scrapping paper checks, Freeman said, and workers can save up to 10% of their salaries by avoiding high check cashing and remittance fees. The company, which is a public benefit corporation, has raised $10.4 million from investors and has 23 employees.

iTradeNetwork

iTradeNetwork, the leading provider of supply chain software solutions for the food and beverage industry, launched its Head Start program to fast track compliance ahead of the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) 204 Traceability rule. These regulations require firms to establish and maintain records containing Key Data Elements (KDEs) associated with different Critical Tracking Events (CTEs). While the proposed requirements would only apply to those foods on the Food Traceability List (FTL), they were designed to be suitable for all FDA-regulated food products. iTradeNetwork streamlines this process by working directly with suppliers to compile, validate, and transmit the required traceability data so that buyers receive critical data elements before items reach the shelves. Learn more via a webinar at iTradeNetwork.com.

PickTrace

PickTrace, winner of the 2022 AgTech Breakthrough award for Labor Management Solutions, is the only all-in-one labor management suite for agriculture. It’s never been this easy to stay compliant, analyze labor costs and run payroll. With PickTrace Onboarding, users can rapidly hire/rehire employees, generate and digitally store their I-9 and W-4 documents, and bulk import employees data from PickTrace into their payroll system. Time and productivity is effortlessly tracked in real time, enabling you and your team to feel confidence in your payroll compliance. Easily pay your workforce with PickTrace Paycards and provide your employees faster access to more of their hard earned money. PickTrace recently increased its presence in Salinas and Yuma, focusing on delivering an exceptional customer experience, optimized field processes and operationalized dat.

When it comes to creating a path to the future in agriculture, the City of Salinas takes its moniker of The Salad Bowl of the World seriously. In the most recent unfolding iteration of the city’s team of players, the goal is to keep growers a priority by developing and acting on plans to support and advance the farming industry.

Lisa Brinton, Director for the City of Salinas Community Development Department, describes the interconnected needs of the industry as a web. An insight into the process of identifying where to devote resources and energy lies in seeing the web from an aerial perspective: “What are the missing links, and how do we provide space for those missing links?” Brinton said. “At this point, we’re looking at the higher level and the industry as a whole without focusing on one component. They all need to come together.”

To support its objectives, the City of Salinas was recently awarded a Sustainable Agricultural Lands Conservation (SALC) grant. The SALC program is a state grant program developed to address climate change by conserving California farmlands and encouraging compact transit-oriented communities. This grant from the state will be used by Salinas to do a deeper dive into the ag economy.

The overview perspective is one that Western Growers shares with the City of Salinas, and one of those strands of the web that links Western Growers and Salinas is the pursuit of new tools for growers. The Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology (WGCIT) has the advantage of being located in a city where objectives often align. Not only is the City of Salinas a sponsor of the Center, but it is also a supporter of the WGCIT events that look to move the needle on agtech innovation. Two of those events are the Salinas Biological Summit that occurred in June 2023 and the FIRA USA event scheduled for September 2023. With the support of the city, both with sponsorship and space, these events are more than one-off gatherings; they’re events that will continue throughout the coming years to keep the pressure on advancing agtech and biological solutions in agriculture.

The City of Salinas has demonstrated that it is much more than a “salad bowl”; it’s a designated agricultural stage. “I think the city’s role is to support future business through land use, through policy, through regulation, through opportunities,” said Brinton. “What is our role? Can we be a facilitator of infrastructure funding or through the formation of an enhanced infrastructure financing district? We’re not the farmers, we’re not the growers, but we help set the stage. And that’s why I think it’s important that we maintain open dialogue and really work together to understand what the industry needs are.”

The City of Salinas has already done much to support agriculture and to allow for the path to the future to be constructed within its city limits, but there is still more to do and more space for opportunity. There’s currently 258 acres designated as the Salinas Ag Industrial Center that remains undeveloped for lack of infrastructure. Right now, it’s an open space waiting to be utilized to explore agtech opportunities in a controlled and measurable environment.

The relationship between the City of Salinas and the growers and packers within the city limits and beyond is a testament to the value of collaboration within the agricultural industry. “The role of the city is keeping that open dialogue,” Brinton concluded. “It’s really so important. I don’t think having that two-way communication to understand how we can work collaboratively to further the industry and the community happens enough.”

The second year of Western Growers’ Specialty Crop Automation Report reveals an industry on the precipice of dramatic benefits to crops, the environment—and people.

Change may be spurred by an individual, but it is driven by the many. Progress is pushed by the cumulative efforts of people coming together, sharing their ideas and combining their actions. The need for adaptation to ever-shifting factors is a constant in agriculture.

While the pressures for change of the current generation of growers are vastly different than the ones who came before them, the needed characteristic of finding ways to adapt to those pressures is the same. Many growers have stories handed down from their grandparents or even their great-grandparents about the challenges their farm faced throughout the years, whether regulatory, pests or water, and many of those issues were addressed by previous generations with technology and innovation. Growers, innovators and trade organizations (like Western Growers) are actively working on the challenges of today, challenges that future generations will look back on and see the value of these efforts and solutions that they rely on just as growers rely on the ones that came before them.

Of the ways to tackle issues like labor shortage, water constraint, climate change and pests, one has a burgeoning presence in the strategy: automation.

In 2021, Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology and consultant Roland Berger acted on the need to compile and report on the actions being made with automation within the agricultural space. The result was the launch of the Global Harvest Automation Initiative (GHAI) in February 2021 with the goal to “drive sustainable and domestic food security by accelerating harvest automation across the fresh produce industry, with the ambition of automating 50 percent of the U.S. harvest within 10 years.” A component of this initiative was the Global Harvest Automation Report (GHAR), which is an annual impact and market traction analysis to keep track of automation solutions in the specialty crop industry. Keeping track of automation solutions in the specialty crop industry is one of the key initiatives of GHAI. After the 2021 GHAR, it became clear that the scope of automation extended beyond harvesting. To account for the automation opportunities related to weeding, thinning, planting, spraying and more, the Global Harvest Automation Report was rebranded to the Specialty Crop Automation Report (SCAR).

The GHAI initiative carries the benefit of having a consolidated viewpoint to approach many of the issues that agriculture is facing and offers data-backed options to move toward solutions. As an ongoing effort, each report will build on the one that came before it, giving the advantage of seeing development and growth in automation adoption year-over-year. Those who add each report to their resource libraries every year will have valuable insight into automation trends readily available as technologies advance and gain adoption traction.

Growers have a history of seeking innovative solutions to challenges, and a 2022 grower survey indicated that labor availability, profitability and regulatory hurdles rank highest as key challenge areas. One of the tallest hurdles growers, packers and shippers are currently facing is a labor shortage, which is a challenge that comes from a culmination of sources. One source is an aging workforce, and the SCAR reports that this is an issue in both the U.S. and EU. The SCAR notes: “The number of managers aged below 35 declined more than any other age group…In 2016, just 5 percent of managers were under 35 [in the EU]. This suggests that younger generations are not joining the agricultural labor force at a rate at which they can replace retiring older generations. The flight of younger managers is akin to what happened in the U.S., where the average age of principal farm operators is now 58, up eight years from 1982.” The hope of automation as it relates to an aging workforce is two-fold; along with accounting for the lack of people there is also the hope that advancing the technological requirements of the industry will attract the younger generation to the sector, particularly for those whose families have already contributed so much to the success of growing operations in the past.

One of the remedies to fill the labor gap has been H-2A certifications, with the number of H-2A job certifications having grown more than 500 percent since 2005 and totaling 317,000 in 2021. According to the SCAR, “It is estimated that H-2A jobs now constitute approximately 10 to 15 percent of U.S. full-time equivalent jobs in crop agriculture.” But a growing dependency on H-2A certifications comes with its own intricacies. According to the SCAR, incorporating mechanization and automation of farm operations may decrease the reliance on H-2A, but the benefits of automation may take time to manifest.

The growing cost of labor is just one of the elements that contributes to a grower’s overall cost, though it’s a substantial one. “Growers indicate that labor typically accounts for more than 50 percent of their total production costs,” the SCAR notes, “and most expect labor costs to grow at 10-30 percent over the next three to five years.” So while the cost of automated innovation technology may come frontloaded, the ROI is measurable against rising expenses.

The developments happening in the world of automation are a display of the benefit of collaborative work with those who share a common objective. In this case, that objective is to increase efficiency. Organizations like JV Smith are putting the technology to work while also working with startups and innovators to make the technology useful in the field. One of the tools currently in use at JV Smith is the laser weeder from Carbon Robotics. According to the SCAR, the bulk of automation is happening in pre-harvest. Weeding is the most automated activity across all crop types, and hardware is the most popular investment method.

For JV Smith Companies, “We have our laser weeders,” said Kristen Smith Eshaya, President of JV Smith Companies, “and through a collaboration with our managers and Carbon Robotics, we have them weeding and thinning at the same time. We will also trial not spraying a pre-plant herbicide with the plan to use the laser weeder instead. We’re excited to always be looking for new ways to automate, be more efficient and grow a better crop.” The technology is a playable piece in navigating current circumstances. “We’re always looking for what’s going to be best for the crop, what’s going to be best for the people, and what’s going to be best for the environment,” said Smith Eshaya. “The more we can do with fewer passes on a piece of ground is ideal.”

The SCAR shows that more and more growers are investing in technology. Around 70 percent of participating growers indicated that they had invested in automation in 2022, with an average annual spend of $450,000-$500,000 per grower. With the up-front investment, grower operations are moving to alleviate some labor costs while freeing up employees to specialize in the technology or other more complicated and hard-to-automate roles. This effort is the pull that U.S. and Europe can use to keep or bring back production to the U.S. and Europe.

Specialty crop agriculture is a connected industry. The effort and push in one segment, in one company, benefits the many. “Our core competitors are also our friends,” said Smith Eshaya. “What we want to see more than anything is for demand to increase to make us all better off. I want to see a healthier world and I believe more consumption of fruits and vegetables is where we start. I don’t see my fellow farmer as my competitor, I see potato chips as my competitor. What I love most about farming is that all my co-workers and everyone I have met in the industry is passionate about what they do. Innovation is a necessity to continue doing what we love.”

Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs, have become a featured topic when it comes to food and food regulation since its introduction to the market in the early 1990s. While the acronym is familiar, many don’t know what it actually means for something to be a genetically modified organism, and fewer still have looked into what it means for them if they consume something that falls within the GMO category.

Commonly searched questions include what is a GMO, is it safe to eat GMO foods or is my seedless watermelon GMO? Many consumers are unaware of the developments and innovation that happen within agriculture all the time. Misunderstanding or a lack of information is common fodder for fear and reactive responses to that anxiety. It’s up to individuals to decide their stance on GMOs, but that stance—and the decision-making that comes from it—should be made with supporting information. This article is not meant to be exhaustive in that endeavor, but it will hopefully spur curiosity or act as an introduction for someone looking to make informed voting decisions.

The History of GMOs and What They Are

According to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a GMO is “a plant, animal, or microorganism that has been altered through genetic engineering, which involves the manipulation of DNA using techniques that are not possible through traditional breeding methods.” The tag of GMO is often used to mean an organism that has had genetic material introduced to promote a beneficial characteristic. This is different from gene editing, which modifies the genetic material that already exists within the organism.

Genetic modification through selective breeding has been happening throughout human history. A shift away from hunting and gathering toward agriculture started the ever-present push to create more food in a better way that continues today. But in 1982, the FDA approved the first genetically engineered consumer product: Biosynthetic Human Insulin (BHI). Not long after that, the federal government established the Coordinated Framework for the Regulation of Biotechnology in 1986. This document is a comprehensive summary of the roles and responsibilities of the three principal regulatory agencies—FDA, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)—have with respect to regulating biotechnology products. This document was updated in 1992 and again in 2017. In the 2017 version, the document notes that it set out to “clarify current roles and responsibilities, to develop a long-term strategy to ensure that the Federal biotechnology regulatory system is prepared for the future products of biotechnology, and to commission an expert analysis of the future landscape of biotechnology products to support these efforts. The goal of this work is to increase public confidence in the regulatory system and to prevent unnecessary barriers to future innovation and competitiveness.” These updates are an indication of the ever-changing nature of human-affected adaptation in biology. These initiatives are perpetually motivated by the need to feed a growing population fresh, nutrient-dense food.

Of the plants that are classified as GMOs, the United States grows only a few, and of those that are, even fewer are specialty crops. Specialty crops are defined by the USDA as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits and horticulture and nursery crops, including floriculture. According to the FDA, the majority of plant GMOs are used to make ingredients that are used in food products, like cereal, snack chips and vegetable oils.

What a GMO Isn’t

Because there is a gap in explaining what a GMO is, confusion exists around determining which food in the produce section of the grocery store is a product of GMO. Genetic innovation to make fruit sweeter, seedless, bigger, smaller, more robust, or easier to harvest are happening in agriculture all the time, but that doesn’t mean those products are a result of genetic engineering. Along with genetic editing, a lot of these new variants of much-loved produce come from a more traditional approach like selective breeding. This is a more time-intensive approach requiring methodical scientific work. So though some may find a seedless fruit suspicious (how can something that comes from a seed be seedless?), that doesn’t mean the produce is a result of genetic alteration. Innovation in agriculture is creative and groundbreaking, and it is powered by the motivation of the industry to provide fresh, healthy produce to the public year after year while adding a bit of surprise and delight (like making fruit taste like a ballpark candy favorite).

What are Common Fears Related to GMOs?

The primary concern people seem to have in relation to GMOs is the potential negative health outcomes that may come from consuming them. Of the concerns, some note that they’re worried that consuming GMOs may lead to allergic reactions, toxic effects, long-term health issues or that the introduction of foreign genes into crops could have unforeseen consequences. According to the FDA, “GMO foods are as healthful and safe to eat as their non-GMO counterparts. Some GMO plants have actually been modified to improve their nutritional value.” But in the common practice of science, the summary is not a declaration, and many researchers continue to assess whether or not there are long-term health effects associated with consuming GMOs.

It’s important to recognize that the availability of GMOs were created and utilized with a purpose, and they have accomplished some of those objectives. In the article A Meta-Analysis of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Crops, researchers Wilhelm Klümper and Matin state, “On average, GM technology adoption has reduced chemical pesticide use by 37%, increased crop yields by 22 percent, and increased farmer profits by 68%. Yield gains and pesticide reductions are larger for insect-resistant crops than for herbicide-tolerant crops. Yield and profit gains are higher in developing countries than in developed countries…The meta-analysis reveals robust evidence of GM crop benefits for farmers in developed and developing countries. Such evidence may help to gradually increase public trust in this technology.”

What Lies Ahead?

Agriculture is an industry that is pulled by the current of adaptation; it’s a component of the very product growers are in the business of selling. The tools that are used today also change with the adaptive nature of the industry and are one step in the way forward. In the same way that the science of the past seems outdated to us now, the ways of today will look the same to those looking back. Already the techniques of genetic alterations are opening up the way to gene editing.

As a succinct overview, the researchers Alessandro Nicolia et al. noted in the article An Overview of the Last 10 Years of Genetically Engineered Crop Safety Research: “The technology to produce genetically engineered (GE) plants is celebrating its 30th anniversary and one of the major achievements has been the development of GE crops. The safety of GE crops is crucial for their adoption and has been the object of intense research work often ignored in the public debate. We have reviewed the scientific literature on GE crop safety during the last 10 years, built a classified and manageable list of scientific papers, and analyzed the distribution and composition of the published literature. We selected original research papers, reviews, relevant opinions and reports addressing all the major issues that emerged in the debate on GE crops, trying to catch the scientific consensus that has matured since GE plants became widely cultivated worldwide. The scientific research conducted so far has not detected any significant hazards directly connected with the use of GE crops; however, the debate is still intense.”

The effort to provide food to a growing population will continue in both the field and the lab. It’s the responsibility of consumers (who are also voters) to navigate the scientific literature to question beliefs and challenge fears.